Merging non-contiguous partitions on a Win 11 disk

[garyc]

Hopefully this is not too trivial a question, I am more of a Linux person with less experience in Windows disk management. I need to merge two non-contiguous partitions on a Windows 11 disk, which the Windows Disk Management tool can not do. There is a recovery partition located between the two, so it may be best not to delete it. One of the two partitions to be merged is the boot partition and the other is allocated.

A search shows various third party tools for doing this, but also people complaining that these tools broke their system. Does anyone know of a robust solution to this problem?

For reference, the disk is a Samsung 860 EVO 500GB SSD.

 

[My_King]

Can you perhaps give a screenshot of Disk Manager?

 

[garyc]

Can you perhaps give a screenshot of Disk Manager?

 

[My_King]

@garyc

You will have to delete the "Recovery partition" in the middle of them.

Then expand the continouis space to one.

To get the recovery disk back follow this roughly:

KB5028997: Instructions to manually resize your partition to install the WinRE update - Microsoft Support

support.microsoft.com

 

[garyc]

@garyc

You will have to delete the "Recovery partition" in the middle of them.

Then expand the continouis space to one.

To get the recovery disk back follow this roughly:

KB5028997: Instructions to manually resize your partition to install the WinRE update - Microsoft Support

support.microsoft.com

Thank you, that makes sense. I will give it a go this weekend after the obligatory backups.

 

[PatchTuesday]

View attachment 1740451

Basically run CMD as Administrator
diskpart
list disk
sel disk 2
list part
sel part 5 ( looking at your screenshot, it looks like yours is partition 5, but visually inspect first)
del part override

 

[garyc]

Basically run CMD as Administrator
diskpart
list disk
sel disk 2
list part
sel part 5 ( looking at your screenshot, it looks like yours is partition 5, but visually inspect first)
del part override

Thank you, yes it does look like partition 5.

 

[PatchTuesday]

You can use Macrium to backup everything or just the recovery partition. Might just be a bit easier than recreating it, although a fresh windows install is always preferred.

https://mybroadband.co.za/forum/threads/free-disk-cloning-software.1295527/post-33194583

If you do decide to go this route,
Instead of creating an ISO, you can choose to add a boot menu at step 3. Do what you need to do and then in macrium just remove the boot menu again the same way you added it. Saves the need for an additional USB drive

 

[garyc]

@garyc

You will have to delete the "Recovery partition" in the middle of them.

Then expand the continouis space to one.

To get the recovery disk back follow this roughly:

KB5028997: Instructions to manually resize your partition to install the WinRE update - Microsoft Support

support.microsoft.com

Thanks. Followed the procedure in the link and all worked out well.

 

[My_King]

Thanks. Followed the procedure in the link and all worked out well.

Nice one.

Glad no issues.